Bargain
by EvenAtMyDarkest
Summary: The tables are turned when Ned is the one waking up, soaked in his own blood, when he never should again, to the touch of someone with a power no one can explain. But with this gift of new life comes a question—one that may never be answered. Two-shot. I do not own Pushing Daisies or any of its characters or concepts.
1. Chapter 1

_The Pie-maker who should have been dead found himself waking up to the tearstained face of the girl named Chuck, whose very finger had been visiting his cheek the instant he returned to the living world._

His head very nearly collided with Chuck's, and would have had she not pulled away immediately. Her face was shocked, but his was even more so, and the first thing he said was—

"Oh… my… God. Oh my God, I should be dead, why… why am I not dead?"

"What the hell just happened?" said the unexpected voice of Emerson Cod, who knelt on the floor just off to the side of the once-dead but now not-so-much-dead Pie-maker. Ned swiveled around, and he hadn't even realized that he'd sat up, but he now found that he had.

Chuck wanted nothing more than to leap on top of Ned and throw her arms around him and give him the hug of his life, but her aversion to such contact that had been built up over the years prevented her from doing so.

"How long?" Ned asked dully. There were so many questions crowding his head, but for whatever reason that was the one that came out first.

"No more than about nine hours, and again I ask, _what the hell just happened?_ "

"It would appear that I'm alive again, so there's your 'what,' but unfortunately I can't supply a 'why,' and are you timing this, because it feels like you should be."

Chuck sniffled loudly and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "No, I… Oh, Ned…"

"It was Manny Orderly," Ned said next, instinctively feeling that, being one who knew what had happened to him and didn't need explaining—well, that wasn't entirely true, but again, he had _what_ 's and not _why_ 's—he should supply the information he could, as quickly as he could. Emerson and Chuck looked stricken but unsurprised, as he had just given them the name of the criminal who they had been trying to find.

This name, of course, led Ned to think of just what had happened with Manny Orderly, and his eyes wandered, unbidden, to his stomach, into which Manny had sunk a seven-inch knife with a wicked curve at the end.

"Oh," he said only as he looked at the hole through the tear in his bloodstained shirt.

"Please dutifully remain calm, as we are," Emerson quickly cut in.

He looked back up at them. "It was late. I was closing up shop. Olive had already left—Olive. Does she know?"

"She's the one who found your body this morning," Emerson said.

Ned squeezed his eyes shut. "How'd she take it?"

"How do you _think?_ " Emerson responded, his trademark dryness seeping into his voice.

"Ned," Chuck cried, returning the Pie-maker's attention to his girlfriend who he could not touch, and he wished, not at all for the first time, that he could hold her and comfort her.

The best he could manage at present was a pained smile. "Well, it certainly feels interesting to be at the other end of this conversation."

Chuck let out a half-laugh, half-sob.

Ned's elbow, which had been propping him up, slipped in something, shaking the smile off his face abruptly. He looked down before he could catch himself.

He shouldn't have been surprised at the amount of blood.

Emerson and Chuck watched uselessly as Ned stared at his own life fluids pooling around him, going even whiter than he'd been as a corpse.

He looked up suddenly as he realized something. "Chuck… you touched me."

She nodded, not sure which of the many possible roads he would take with this realization.

"Why would you do that? You could have died."

She breathed out. "I don't know, I wasn't thinking, I just… I saw you and I cried some and I wanted to do what you did when you saw me. I just wasn't expecting you to do the same thing that I did in response."

"Come back to life," Emerson said wryly.

Ned touched his own cheek involuntarily. For the first time he realized that he still lay on the floor of The Pie Hole's kitchen. "I haven't been moved," he realized.

"Of course not. Olive found you and called me—I was the first to know. We came quickly. Called the cops only minutes ago. Technically speaking we're not supposed to be here before forensics."

"I'm quite sure it's been more than a minute." He returned his attention to his friends, and he knew that they were both just as lost and confused as he was. "I don't know what's happening any more than you do, I promise. Chuck, I want you to go to that table—" he pointed "—and bring me a rotten strawberry."

Uncertain and still incapable of holding back her tears, Chuck did as he said. When she held it out to him, he stared at it. "I don't understand."

Chuck didn't question him—not that she didn't plan to later. Traces of an uncertain smile lingered on her face as she slowly held the strawberry closer and closer to Ned.

After a moment, he nodded towards the private investigator. "Give it to Emerson."

She did so. It was not unusual for them to use any available third party instead of handing things directly to each other. They did not want to risk contact.

Emerson compliantly took the gray, fuzzy strawberry, and in turn held it out to Ned.

When he took it, the grayness dissolved instantly, and it turned ripe with new life.

The Pie-maker stared at it with an intensity that the other two did not quite understand. He looked up and saw their confused expressions, and promptly said, "Is there any chance that either of you have reached the same conclusion that I have?"

"I don't know, is there any chance that you're dead?" Emerson said, his sarcasm understandably subpar given the situation.

"I've had an entire lifetime to wonder about the technicalities of what I can do. I've wondered if anything spectacular would happen when _I_ died. And I've wondered if, because of the same cosmic balance rule that kills anything within close proximity of that which remains alive-again for over a minute, when I died, someone else would be able to do what I can."

They blinked, almost at exactly the same time. After a second or two they blinked again.

"Fact one: Chuck, you just touched me back to life. Fact two: you just failed to touch _this_ ," he held up the now-ripe strawberry, "back to life. Fact three: I succeeded. So you could when I was dead but you can't anymore. And I can."

"You saying Dead Girl got your magic finger because you weren't alive to be magic finger man anymore?" Emerson tried to understand. "And then touched you back to life and gave it back?"

"Basically." He offered a half-smile.

Chuck put her face in her hands.

"That's all well and good," Emerson sighed, "and it's not like my head's about to explode or anything, but the police are going to be here any second and we need to get our story straight before we have to start answering questions. I say we tell 'em we found you barely breathing, and they rush you to the hospital and stitch you up, 'cause I don't really see any other option."

Chuck nodded in agreement.

Ned, however, was uneasy at this thought. "Do I actually need to be stitched up? With only one-minute periods of observation I don't exactly have this down to a science, but as far as I've been able to tell I can live with this hole in my gut without any problems."

"Be that as it may," Emerson said, "there's no viable explanation to give to the coppers. Besides, what kind of weirdo wants to live with a hole in his gut if he don't have to?"

Ned knew his argument was a losing one. He prepared himself to continue defending it anyway, but this moment of quiet was when they all became distinctly aware of the sound of approaching sirens. Chuck and Emerson automatically looked back to Ned.

Too many thoughts vied for attention in Ned's head, and he blurted, "Fine."

After a surprised moment, Emerson stood up slowly. "I'll just… go to the front and look distressed then." He headed for the door. A moment later, Ned and Chuck were alone.

Ned looked around at his beloved Pie Hole, wondering if he would ever bake here again. He looked at Chuck, wondering if there was any way he could ever hold her in his arms. She returned his gaze, tears still running down her cheeks.

"I love you, Chuck," he said suddenly.

She let out a weak giggle. All she wanted was to clasp his hand between hers. "I love you too, Pie-maker. Ned."

He smiled, and lay down again on the floor, assuming the position he guessed he would probably be in. He closed his eyes and made his breathing very soft and shallow. And Chuck had a lot of trouble convincing herself that he actually was _not_ dead, that his pale skin and the large pool of blood underneath him were no indication of his physical health, and that after all this was over he would be hale and hearty again, just like he had been the last time she'd seen him.


	2. Chapter 2

One month, seven days, five hours, and forty-nine minutes later, Ned walked back into The Pie Hole, and was promptly tackle-hugged by Olive and Chuck, the latter of whom had bundled herself up in several layers and a long pair of gloves for the occasion.

He hugged them back, and Emerson would have joined in too, had he been prone to hugging. When they finally disentangled themselves from each other, Chuck said quietly, "Can we see?"

Of course he knew what they meant. He lifted up his shirt, and there, an inch above his belly button, was a wide, faded red scar.

Chuck looked into his eyes, smiling brilliantly, and they both knew what the other was thinking—he should have died, in fact he _had_ , and here he was, with only a scar to show for it.

The doctors had called it a medical miracle. Everyone who knew the secret called it Chuck's magic finger.

Chuck's magic finger which now seemed to have lost its magic. Ned was the only one she'd had a chance to use it on. And she could not have been more grateful.

She reached out to stroke the scar, also grateful for the gloves. Ned tensed slightly, and she withdrew her hand.

"Does it hurt?" Olive asked.

"Better than being dead." He smiled surreptitiously at Chuck, who returned with a smile of her own and a wink.

It was at this moment that Ned received a very unexpected and unpleasant surprise in the form of his once-dead dog hurtling himself at his beloved owner over the counter in a flurry of saliva and excitement. Ned didn't even have time to shout his pet's name, as he had intended to, before he was sent sprawling on his back.

It took him several seconds to realize that Digby was sitting on his chest, licking his face enthusiastically.

Alive.

He let out an exclamation that was not a word, but if it had been, it would be spelled something like "Yeeeeugh" and pushed Digby off of his chest, scrambling backwards several feet, never taking his eyes off of his should-be-dead dog.

Olive was watching with a wide grin on her face, oblivious to the fact that this was much more than a reunion between a young man and his dog. Next to her, Chuck looked on, her shock apparent on her face—or it would have been if Olive had just turned and looked at her. "See?" Olive said. "It doesn't kill you to touch him a little. Come on, give 'im a hug."

Ned had drawn his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs, watching his dog like he was a dangerous beast. He looked to Chuck, as she stood there watching in shock and bewilderment, like a scared little child, which was, to her, completely understandable.

What Chuck _didn't_ understand was why Digby wasn't dead.

* * *

Ned stayed on the floor, alternating between staring at Digby and staring at nothing for a few minutes. Not too far into it, Chuck asked Olive to take Digby back to Ned's apartment, to which she eventually and confusedly agreed.

When Ned felt sufficiently able to walk, speak, and navigate the world in general again, he all but shoved Emerson aside to get into the kitchen. The PI and Chuck followed him silently.

He marched straight up to the door to his left, yanked it open, and practically dove for the nearest dish of fresh apples sitting on the shelf. He seized one, and stared at its unchanging red skin for several seconds before turning to them. By this point Chuck had a vague idea of what was going on, but it helped when he said, "I touched all of these back to life the day I died."

* * *

 _The facts were these._

 _The Pie-maker had died, and while his gift had been returned to him when he was restored, it seemed to have forgotten about all his alive-agains from his first life. He was no longer a danger to Digby, and could touch him freely. Logically, this should mean that he could touch Chuck as well._

 _The question was, could Chuck touch_ him?


End file.
